


If a Tree Falls

by pyrchance



Category: Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Body Horror, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:40:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25453276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyrchance/pseuds/pyrchance
Summary: George Ross dies on a Tuesday.There will be a thump as his body hits the floor, but no one is around to hear it.Ryan rather enjoys the silence.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	If a Tree Falls

**Author's Note:**

> Mind the tags please.

George Ross dies on a Tuesday.

There will be a thump as his body hits the floor, but no one is around to hear it. He’ll gurgle around a little on the bathroom tile, yellow bile bubbling up from his throat and lodging there. Choking to death isn’t a quiet affair, even if the person currently dying is already unconscious.

The only person who might have heard George Ross’s final moments is playing video games on a couch three blocks away. Ryan Ross doesn’t feel anything as his father dies, except jubilation as his racing cart finishes in first.

He’s relieved when he unlocks his front door the next morning and finds that all is quiet. He notices his father’s truck is still in the driveway, but he’s learned his lesson about knocking on his father’s door, even if he should be at work. Ryan changes into new clothes, throws back on his backpack, and is out again in under ten minutes.

In the bathroom, the vomit on George Ross’s face sticks his cooling skin to the floor.

Ryan Ross has a rather uneventful week. In his life, this makes it a very good week.

Ryan bases so much of his life on his father’s moods and fits that coming home to a quiet house each night feels like a minor blessing. He can actually finish his homework at home, instead of on the bus on the way to school. He cleans up a little in the living room like he usually does, and gets a happy little buzz when no new bottles replace the ones he just threw out. A few lingering bruises on his arms fade into clean, pale skin.

He does wonder a bit about the truck still in the driveway. He worries for a moment that perhaps his father was fired again. The last time that happened Ryan’s mom actually had to come and pick Ryan up it got so bad. She’d kept him for an entire week and when he’d come home there were new holes in the walls and the tv was missing and Spencer was waiting down the block to sign his fancy new cast. There are no explosions of anger when Ryan gets home though. No one waylays him at the door with slurred tales of an unfair world out to destroy them or accusations that Ryan isn’t doing his fair share. Everyday that he walks in to a quiet house, Ryan relaxes a little more.

So he doesn’t worry about the truck that much. It could just be that his father’s hours were changed. It could be that something was wrong with the truck and his father had taken the bus. It could be anything, anything at all.

A few days in, Ryan does notice an odd smell as he comes home from school. It’s almost sweet but absolutely foul and Ryan spends an entire afternoon scrubbing out the kitchen cabinets, trying to find the mouse that must have died in them.

He leaves the windows open as he goes to school, but the smell is still there. He thinks maybe its stronger in the hallway near his father’s bedroom, but again, Ryan doesn’t open that door. The smell isn’t so bad in his own room with the door closed, so after a little while Ryan stops looking so hard. He’s sure it’ll stop stinking eventually.

He’s having a good week, after all. There’s no point in ruining it.

Two weeks after George Ross dies choking and alone in his bathroom, Ryan Ross notices that the voicemail in the kitchen is blinking. It’s gives him his first frown in a little while. Ryan finds happiness when things are quiet and peaceful, and things have been just that for fourteen days now.

Ryan doesn’t remember the last time he saw his father, but it can’t have been that long ago. He’s stopped glancing at the truck in the driveway as he comes in. He starts taking it for granted when he steps in to a silent house.

His father has left for work trips and benders before. This could be that. Ryan’s learned to relish the moments of calm in the storm, the honeymoon times.

The voicemails report that George Ross has several bills unpaid and overdue. Ryan frowns further.

He plays the messages again and writes down the numbers on a scrap piece of envelope from the junk drawer. He takes the note and walks reluctantly down the hallway to his father’s bedroom door. His nose wrinkles a little, but he’s become accustom to the smell and the way it clings to the back of his throat. He’s cleaned up after his father’s messes before. He has a strong stomach.

Just like the house, his knock is very quiet.

“Dad?”

Nothing stirs.

Oh well. His father must away at work, or perhaps a bar. He tucks the envelop away in the kitchen and doesn’t think about it at all until the lights won’t turn on a week later.

He finds his father’s check book in the glovebox of his truck and sends out the bills.

It isn’t the first time he’s had to forge his father’s signature. It isn’t the first time his father’s forgotten to pay them. He doesn’t worry.

A month after his father dies, Ryan admits something might be wrong.

It isn’t the first time a parent has left him. He calls his mom but it takes her over five days to call him back, and by then Ryan can’t get the words out. He doesn’t have anyone else to call though.

He stands outside his father’s door, but doesn’t open it. He presses his ear to the wood and everything is quiet, still. Something in him eases at the silence.

Spencer says, “You’ve haven’t been over as much lately. Everything okay?”

Ryan thinks about his clean and quiet house and the way his skin looks without bruises and how it feels to come home and not feel his entire spine lock into place at the sight of his father collapsed on the couch.

“It’s been quiet,” Ryan admits. He smiles. “It’s nice.”

Spencer smiles back, sincere and kind in the way only Spencer knows how to be. Ginger pets Ryan’s hair as he goes home, reminding him that he’s always welcome. She sniffs at his clothes with a little frown.

Ryan remembers that his mother and father have never been his real family anyway. Not the one he’s always wanted. The family any kid deserves.

That night he shoves a towel under his dad’s door and washes every piece of clothing he owns.

Tomorrow, he thinks, eyeing his father’s car keys on the counter, tomorrow he’ll ask Spencer to go for a ride. Maybe he’ll even buy some candles.

It’s been a few months since George Ross died and some of his teeth have fallen out and landed on the dried pool of bile haloing his head.

Ryan has called the bank and used a deep voice and his father’s social security number to learn just what is left in his bank account. It isn’t bad. It isn’t bad at all. He sends the bills out each month and picks up a job at a local sandwich shop. The house is paid for. The utilities Ryan can manage. He buys a new rug for the living room to replace the old, stained, dirty one and it feels so nice he strips off his shirt and lays on it facedown for hours.

The candles make the house smell nice. Ryan likes the vanilla ones best. He plugs in the little spray things in the hallway and buys nicer laundry detergent. He learns how to cook, a little. He starts hanging out with Ginger in the kitchen and picking up the basics. He buys a new coffee machine and comes to worship it.

He and Spencer start a band. Or, rather, they expand on the two act basement thing they’ve been doing since they were both fourteen. Spencer finds Brent who finds Brendon and Ryan is the one with a truck big enough to fit a drum kit.

Ryan doesn’t think he’d have the confidence to actually play in front of people normally, but Ryan’s life is reaching a new sort of equilibrium. It’s a little less painful stepping out in front of people when he has a quiet place to retreat to. Brendon and Brent blink at him the first time Ryan laughs out loud, not just little chuckle he’s trained himself to give, but soon they come to goad him into it. It feels good to laugh like that, like his happiness isn’t in danger if people notice it. Spencer watches on with a proud smile.

They play their first gig with nothing but terrible, terrible blink-182 covers. They’re at a house party full of people they barely know. Nobody actually cares about them though, so even sucking doesn’t suck. Ryan sees people around him laughing as they get drunk and high and thinks they’re all a little stupid to be doing it but he’s not afraid of them either. He would envy their wide smiles, except even those have been coming to him a little easier these days.

They get a little better on their instruments. Some people actually listen to them and dance while they play. Ryan thinks this might be the happiest time of his life. His friends seem made of light and music and his home is quiet, calm, and still.

He writes in two notebooks when he goes home. He curls up in the soft new chair he bought for the living room and drinks his coffee serenely in his favorite mug while looking out the window. In the first notebook, the one he shyly hands off to Brendon a week after they hear him sing—really sing—is full of little poems and lyrics. It’s the start of something that Ryan’s too nervous to name just yet, but makes his fingers feel warm and tingly.

The second notebook is full of other, more private, things.

Whenever he looks at them Ryan can’t help but sigh in contentment. His life is so, so peaceful.

He pats the door to his father’s room when he passes it. _Pat pat_ in thank you.

His father can’t hear him, but the flies do. They buzz a little louder, disturbed, before getting back to work.

One year after his death, what remains of George Ross is of little interest to anyone, not even the flies.

In the driveway, the truck is piled high with amps and guitar cases and drums. Brendon’s scraped the words _Just Graduated!_ into the dirty back window, out of which he hangs his head and hollers at them all to hurry up.

The seat where Brent used to sit is empty, but that’s okay. They all understood the band life wasn’t for everyone. Brent has a girlfriend that he loves and they love that for him. Ryan and Spencer and Brendon are chasing the music.

Spencer walks into Ryan’s house for the first time since they were little kids. Ryan let’s him in almost shyly, ducking his head and watching closely as Spencer does a full circle in the living room, marveling at the clean, dusted surfaces and soft, warm furniture. He runs his fingers through Ryan’s second favorite blanket—his first packed away for tour—and turns with a question for Ryan.

“It’s been quiet,” Ryan explains, before Spencer can ask it. “It’s been nice.”

They’re words Ryan’s said before, but Spencer still smiles and nods and hugs him like he means it.

“You look happy,” Spencer says.

It’s still a little hard for Ryan to admit that he is. “I’ll meet you in the truck,” Ryan says. “I’m just gong to say goodbye.”

Spencer’s surprised. “You’re dad is here?”

Ryan just nods.

Spencer hugs him again, hefts Ryan’s last bag to lug it out to the truck, and climbs into the passenger seat to start arguing with Brendon about their driving playlist.

Ryan can hear them through the open front door and smiles. Those two voices are all good noises. In fact, they’re two of Ryan’s favorite noises. Even though he’s gotten used to more good noises than bad now, it still feels nice to hear them here inside his quiet house.

He wanders through the kitchen, blowing out candles one by one. There’s some cooking oil spilled on the counter, but that’s okay. He doesn’t clean it. He stands in his bed room and looks at the bare walls where his posters used to be and the empty closet. He looks around the living room one last time and wishes there was room in his storage locker for the rest of it, but he knows where he’s going he won’t need the soft blankets and chairs that have filled his home with peace.

He picks up a three-wick vanilla candle from the coffee table and walks back down the hallway.

The towel under his father’s door is long gone. The door doesn’t even creak when Ryan eases it open for the first time.

The door to the ensuite bathroom is open. There might be something on the floor there, but Ryan doesn’t look.

He stares down at the mess of bottles and dirty clothes and grubby dishes in this room and feels his father’s impression like an oil stain on his skin. It’s loud in this room in a way that Ryan doesn’t like to remember, but he’s grown under the shade of silence and doesn’t hunch away under the echoes.

He sets the candle down on a dresser, near the window. He tidies a little, just stacking clothes into piles nearby and moving some bottles around.

When he’s finished, he pushes the candle a little closer to the sun-stained curtain nearby and smiles. He feels warm.

“Thanks, Dad,” Ryan says and he means it.

Then he closes the door and quiets the ghost behind it.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, not quite sure where this one comes from, but I have to say as a person who grew up with an alcoholic parent it also feels a bit cathartic.


End file.
